Poll

Business

Shoprite is no more, but the plaza is not entirely vacant. The gas station and car wash are still operating and Lago Pizza is still open The pizza place and Italian restaurant is operated by Júlio Ortiz and Esperanza Forero.

When Original Italian Pizza (OIP) moved from its longtime home at the west end of Bedford to its new home in the old Wal-Mart Plaza, Domenica LoPiccolo wanted to commission Leslie Padgett to do a mural.

A native of Knoxville, Tenn., Dr. Scheibe has lived in Beford County for six years, five of them in the Five Forks area. She earned her doctor of optometry degree from Illinois College of Optometry in 1999.
She’s a baseball fan.
“I like the Cubs, the Chicago Cubs,” she said.
That choice was not influenced by the fact that Illinois College of Optometry is located in Chicago.

His point is that there are worse things than an apple that doesn’t look perfect, the potential result of using reduced spray techniques. The worse thing is pesticide residue on the apple.
Johnson said that he began using low spray techniques when he stopped shipping apples and began selling exclusively directly to the public.
“I don’t have to grow a perfect apple anymore,” he said.

They initially started raising livestock at Idlewild Farm because they were concerned about what was in the food they were eating. Their solution was to raise their own.
Then friends started asking to buy some, so they expanded. Doug saw it as a way to make the whole project pay for itself.

“We have farmed actively here for seven years,” Holly said.
They are totally organic, and then some.
“We don’t use any chemicals here,” she said. “We don’t even use organic chemicals. We believe in the importance of the health of the soil.”

D&L Cattle, in Goode, is run by a father and son team. The D is for David Arrington and the L is for Lynwood Arrington, David’s father.

“We’ve raised cattle for several years,” said Lynwood Arrington.
Previously they sold cattle to the market, but they began direct marketing to the public this year, in February, an idea that a cousin suggested. It sounded like a good idea and they began working in September, 2011, to put a plan in action.

Ben Coleman, of Mountain Run Farm, decided to go chemical free after his son was born.
“I didn’t feel good about sitting him in a field that I just fertilized,” he said. “We made a point never to bring chemicals down this driveway.”
He has built the soil with manure and he said this has brought the soil to life.